Motivation

As I observe fencers in their natural environment I have something to report:
Fencers fence for a variety of reasons. All of them are valid and interesting, not to mention widely varied.

If you visit fencing.net you will find that the vast majority of fencers, parents, coaches, & directors swear by fencers who compete without emotion. That a cold state of mind, one who fences like a dutchman plays footy, is preferable to a fencer who competes with emotions written on the sleeve. I know that this is not the only way to fence because I've watched emotionally unstable teammates win Div II and Div I at nationals. Not only do these emotional fencers excel at fencing, they are rather terrifying at it and draw additional speed from their baser instincts. From personal experiences, I can say without a doubt that emotion can be a strong ally if properly harnessed & trained.

The same can be said for anything as it relates to training and control. Sometimes summoning anger and frustration can be a beneficial, as it is almost impossible to discount these feelings and at times downright unhealthy. If someone goes 4 points up on you in DEs or Pools, you get riled up. Especially if you are inexperienced. Instead of discounting your frustration, control and use the extra power and hate going through your body. Please forgive me if I sound like the emperor from Star Wars, but if its there you might as well use it. Resisting baser human urges in a bout might hurt you more than helping you. But before you try any of these methods on the strip, try them in practice first.

As to the ideal ice cold fencer, I can agree that it is best to fence cold. No hate, no happiness, no neutrality, nothing. I prefer my mind to be empty and to view my opponent as a math equation that only needs an answer before they go away and I can progress to the next question. After all, X has to equal 15 before I advance, how hard of a math problem is that?

Unfortunately, the above paragraph only applies on our best days as fencers. Actually, the above paragraph only applies on our best days as humans. That is why you have to know how to deal with emotion on the strip. As most fencers will agree, anything you don't use as leverage against an opponent will be used as leverage against you.

It is hard to convince young kids that their superiors are willing to be this ruthless. The world is full of happiness and David beating Goliath, right? Wrong. The truth of the matter is that Goliath beats the crap out of David on a daily basis. But sometimes David realizes that the deck is stacked against him and decides that he is going to throw a rock into Goliath's face. As a former David, I have found numerous rocks to throw in the face on oncoming Goliaths. Find yours.

Other sports

I need to find a way to motivate my students in to cross training exercises. I have one student who constantly plays footbag by himself, but he is the only one who does any exercise outside of fencing. His footwork has become much more creative and confident even a little maintenance outside of class. I am starting to get another student to come running with me, but his motivation to improve has never been in question.

Recently, we have been practicing indoor soccer as a warm up. We are still trying to figure out how long the warmup should go, as right now we are consuming a healthy 30 minutes in soccer alone. I am also leery about changing what we currently have going as I've seen huge improvements to footwork technique and confidence since we started warming up with soccer. Fixing something that isn't broken seems unwise, so for the moment I think things will remain.

Energy & politics

This week has been rough. I worked for 7 hours on Friday teaching private lessons & a camp. Don't get me wrong, I love coaching, but my energy level is hilariously low right now. This is my day off & all I can think of is building magic decks & reading trashy science fiction.

Despite that, I had a very productive meeting with Laura & Chris today regarding incoming and outgoing coaching staff. It appears that I will be teaching a class for the homeschool students this fall & Laura will make an attempt to place me at 20 hours a week teaching BEFORE I add in my hours for private lessons. The really hectic part of the near future will be our first ever recruitment drive through the middle schools & high schools.

This recruiting run will be crucial to the future of MYFA. If we start with our best foot forward & attract as many students as we possibly can, MYFA would explode in membership & recognition. We would have a much greater presence throughout the area. Afterward, the real work begins: getting those kids hooked on the sport.

Fear

Many students are afraid of losing in a tournament. It makes sense, they lose the bout, they stop fencing, they watch their teammates progress in the event, they lose morale. The worst part is when they can see it happening, and instead of fighting back they crumple.

I cannot teach ruthlessness, but I can discuss what happens when you start to lose a bout. You get nervous, you start to feel disappointment, & you stop focusing on the bout. It is the loss of focus that results in a loss, not the fear. Fear is healthy if properly managed and kept in focus, but it destroys technique if it is unacknowledged.

I think a few batman lessons are in order this week.

Big Sky State Games

Results

I headed to Billings on Friday to compete in the BSSG. I went with Jesse & Chris, and a total of 5 saber fencers from MYFA competed. I placed 1st for the second year in a row, & one of the younger fencers was 3 touches away from his first medal in a tournament.

The biggest problems I saw with my students were thankfully very fixable. Skills, & technique were very impressive while mental endurance & adaptation were incredibly low. Both of those weaknesses are fixed with time and attending more tournaments. After a bit of stripside coaching with one of my students in his first DE (in which he was knocked out), I brought some things to his attention at the minute break that he hadn't noticed. He was down 4 touches & equalized in the next 4. Unfortunately, he couldn't adapt to his opponent's change.

My students lacked patience and finishing ability, always trying to rush the last touch and finish the bout.

Things to drill this week: Feints, stopcuts, exchanges, & arm cuts. My students impressed in the pools against one of Billings' better fencers for their attack in prep.

Tonight I'm heading to dinner with an incoming fencer from Texas, Chris the Epee coach, & Laura. We are going to discuss possible employment with the young Texan as a coach & the division as a whole. I am very optimistic about fresh blood in Missoula's foil department as it is bogged down by outdated ideas and stodgy fencers unwilling to comprehend the changes in fencing since 1970.

On the way out & back we stopped at Mark's In & Out for milkshakes & burgers. It was so unbelievably good. If you are traveling through Montana in the summer, I demand that you stop here for some AMAZING food.

I applied for a job at the local library that I am very qualified for. If I get it, my future will likely be much more secure than it is now.

Hobby vs. sport

There was an excellent article written about how to promote a fencing club, but the title was misleading in comparison to the content.

I read the article and looked forward to anecdotes about hobby fencers and athletes butting heads about policy, technique, reffing, or whatever. Instead I read a helpful guide about marketing, dealing with the press, and administration. All of which were very useful and informative, but left me disappointed.

There exists a cultural dichotomy in the sport of fencing between hobby fencers and competitive fencers. They can look the same, but they do the sport for entirely different reasons. The quintessential hobby fencer shows up to practice when he feels like it, and never goes to tournaments. When he does show to practice, he may fence two bouts before standing on the strip for the rest of class talking to people. He is not highly motivated, and likes to tell friends that he knows how to fence. This person does not like new fencers who are driven to succeed because he has seen far too many ambitious beginners surpass him. Understandably, it is embarrassing to be one of the few fencers present with 5 years experience losing to 14 year olds who started last year.

In contrast, the ideal competitive fencer makes almost every practice in a given year. He goes broke attending tournaments and keeping his gear in peak condition. He hones his mind and body like a knife, practicing technique and drilling weak areas until he can barely take it. The competitive fencer welcomes new people on the basis that their will be growth and possibly a new teammate to bounce ideas and tricks off of.

Fencers fall somewhere in between these two extremes. The closer you are to one of these ideals than the other, the more you alienate the opposite end of the spectrum. Competitive members look upon the hobbyist as some primitive caveman who can't seem to understand that it isn't his rotten technique, but rather his rotten Approach that holds him back. In contrast, the hobbyist views the competitor as someone who wastes his money on fencing. The competitor looks like an overbearing jackass with a god complex to hobbyist fencers.

There is no point going into further detail, as the battle between the two centers around ambition. Competitors view this as their life, or they approach all of their activities they have invested in with similar zeal. The hobbyist may have another activity that he is completely in love with and fencing takes a back seat. Or the hobbyist approaches everything in life in a lackadaisical fashion.

The real trick for the coach is to make those two types of people happy despite their forced coexistence. Currently in MYFA, Saber is overrepresented by competitive fencers and a few hobbyists. Epee & Foil are comprised entirely of hobbyists. As I have gone into earlier, none of these kids were given an option to be competitive in the future. Now that the choice has been introduced, many of them have given shy responses despite good attendance. This information can mean a few things, I interpret it like this:

These kids can beat some of their friends in practice, and that makes them think that they are comparatively good fencers. While I am happy that they are enjoying themselves and their success over their peers, I am confused at their unwillingness to push themselves further.

At the next practice I will mention to them that it is indeed fun to beat people in fencing. Then I will ask if the fun level increases as the difficulty increases. I hope that will motivate a few more students.

Don't get me wrong, hobbyists have their place in fencing clubs. They pay the bills and eventually turn into competitors. Seldom does a hobbyist stick around for more than a few years before finding something new or increasing their involvement. I've seen it happen many times.

Inventory

Just what does Missoula Youth Fencing have in the way of assets?

Ah, it is this that we are trying to build. We currently have enough club gear to outfit at least 10-15 fencers at a time. Given the rate at which we add new students and the rate at which those new students buy their own gear, we use approximately 2 full sets of gear at a practice with around 20 students. Our greatest ally in this is our fabulous organizer Laura. She is the parent of one of the fencers that has been administering the club's logistics for the last 3 years. She is very adept at communication and informs all of the parents about large group purchases to cut down on shipping costs. She is also the only reason we have a respectable space in which to practice, as she is a terrifying negotiator.

As for coaching staff, we have 3-4 people. I am the Saber coach with 12 years experience, decent national results, and my coach was a student of Santelli. The Epee coach is Chris, the bright younger fencer I mentioned in the previous post. Since then he has tirelessly sought improvement in his own fencing and teaching capabilities. He teaches youth classes at the club and is a very gifted teacher. Despite his inexperience, I have great faith that he will produce talented fencers. The Foil coach is Kole, the only permanent coach on staff born in Montana and trained to fence in Montana. He is currently struggling to keep students as his focus is not on competitive fencing, but rather the social aspect of a club. There are other coaches who used to coach far more frequently but have either moved away after graduating, found other jobs, or lost interest.

We have 3 members who regularly competed at Inland Empire tournaments last year, all of which fence saber. The number is likely to stay the same as we are losing one student and gaining a new one. I'm hoping 4 more kids surprise me in practice and express and interest in competing regularly. Our greatest obstacle to overcoming this fear of competition is how these kids were introduced to the sport.

The club was originally billed as an activity that met once a week for one hour. Kids could tell their friends they knew how to fence, and their parents could boast about their awesome swashbuckling child. The older coaches were interested in having cute little fencing minions who would always look up the coach.

I am of the mind that fencing students should eventually replace their outdated coaches and strive to better themselves as fencers. There was, and still is, a bit of friction between myself and older Montana fencers.

So right now, my biggest obstacle is convincing a large group of kids that this is an Olympic sport as opposed to a Dungeons & Dragons enhancement.

For the record.

Hello, my name is AJ, and this is my blog. I am 25 years old, and in the process of building a fencing club in Missoula, Montana. I started fencing in Minneapolis in 1998 and fenced for the Minnesota Sword Club for 6 years of my later childhood.

I started this blog because it has become apparent just how much goes into founding a club. I would like to share with others my difficulties and experiences in the hopes that it will be helpful or at least entertaining.

I find it appropriate to start at the beginning, and so I shall:

I graduated in high school in 2003 along with the strongest saber team my club had ever produced. I had remained a low ranked fencer for my entire life largely because my teammates were just that terrifying. I earned my first "B" the summer I graduated and was a "D" up until then. For those not in the know, that means that I was looked upon as little more than a speed bump until that summer, at which point the "B" denotes that someday I might be a decent fencer.

Almost all of my teammates went to college at NCAA schools for fencing. While I got into NYU, Johns Hopkins, and a few other top flight schools, I was given no money to go to them. Instead, I decided I would take a break from national competitions and go to college in Montana. The shock of going from a competitive club that churned out murderers in NCAA to a college club that met in a class room half the size of a regulation strip was intense. I recall showing up expecting to defend where I came from, only to find that I was the only one with any competitive training.

I went to one tournament in the Inland Empire division. A total of 10 points was scored on me throughout my event, and I did what any frustrated young athlete might do. I quit. I took up college Ultimate Frisbee which was WAY more intense and rewarding. Most importantly, I did not quit because I suddenly had no competition. On the contrary, I was more than willing to train students. What I will relate next might be shocking to big city fencers.

I wasn't allowed to train students because Saber was looked upon as an unskilled weapon that anyone could do. Epee was some foul aberration of Foil meant to be fenced standing still, and Foil was the only true blade in the sport of fencing. I recall one of my opponents in my first Montana tournament remarking after a touch, "One light? Saber never has one light touches!" I was ridiculed for refusing to fence foil, which I hated and still hate to this day (As you can guess, I only fence Saber). I would show up to a practice, the one other saber fencer who also fenced all three weapons could stand fencing me for about 5 minutes before stopping and doing foil. No footwork was ever practiced, and drills were some rare form of magic that didn't occur in the natural world.

Obviously, I have some bitterness toward this period of fencing in Montana. Needless to say, I have no urge to continue down the hateway and shall instead refer to the next 4 years that I was uninvolved with fencing as the Dark Ages.

Fast forward to 2008. I graduated college the year before, moved to Eugene, decided I hated Eugene, and promptly moved back to Montana to piece my life together. I tried going back to the Ultimate scene, but found it held none of the good feelings it had in college. I looked in my closet one day and found my dusty fencing stuff in my red & black bag. I talked to an old fencing buddy on the phone about past tournaments, road trips, glorious wins, and being a stupid teenager. I realized that I forgot just how much fun I had as a fencer, buried under those traumatic few months in 2003. So I went down to the University club, 4 years later and older, and fenced a few people. It was awkward at first, but found the conditioning from Ultimate served well to preserve the fast twitch muscles that fencing requires. I encountered the same stupid attitude to fencing, but decided I wouldn't let it bother me. The club was under new management by a young fencer who had started earlier that year and was ridiculously gung-ho about it. Having heard about me as some sort of deific figure in fencing, he asked questions constantly, so I answered them. He came to understand that I was in fact a mid level fencer on the national circuit who just happened to have an amazing coach and a fair understanding of the sport (or at least one that works, as far as I've seen).

He informed me about the local youth club that had been started and was boasting attendance of up to 20 regular kids (FYI: Missoula population approx. 70,000). I taught a small conditioning class of around 5 because someone told the organizer the same thing I was told back in 2003. What could she possibly want with a coach who could only teach one blade? Gradually, I began to garner more attention and even began teaching private lessons. Now there are more kids practicing Saber at the youth club than Epee or Foil combined. It was about now in both this blog post and in my fencing career that I realized that there was more reward in this sport than just winning. 4-5 students of mine began to compete and travel across Montana and Washington. Suddenly, I saw myself as a dorky, long haired, idiot teenager plying the fencing circuits, and these kids doing the exact same thing. These kids were going to have a similar experience to possibly someday share with students of their own. I wasn't just doing this teaching thing as a little extra money on the side, I was in this for keeps. I cancelled going to grad school for my library science degree and have been devoting my time to improving fencing awareness throughout Missoula.

We currently boast an entire gym that we have been using for practice and I will have 5 students taking private lessons from me in the fall. All last year I had at least two students with me at every Inland Empire tournament. This fall, we plan to attend tournaments in Utah, Seattle, and possibly Denver and Portland.

The University of Montana & the local club are interchangeable and remain so to this day. This fall, we are shuffling administration around so that the two can function separately without forcing college kids and middle school kids to practice with each other. This fall will also be the start of club night, where MYFA offers practice 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturday mornings). The University offers practice 3 times a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays). We have chosen this schedule to offer as much fencing opportunity as we possibly can to our small population of fanatics and large population of casual fencers.

I think that is quite sufficient for the first blog entry. Subsequent posts will be nowhere near as long.